Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the eruption of the First Palestinian Intifada. The Intifada broke out on December 8, 1987 when an Israeli truck driver had run over a car with Palestinian workers inside. The incident took place in Jablia Camp in North Gaza. Four Palestinians were martyred leaving many others injured.
The first spark was triggered in Jabalia but soon spread all over the Palestinian cities and camps. The Palestinians used stones as the main tool of resistance. As a result, the Intifada was called the ‘Intifada of Stones’. The Palestinian youngsters were the key players in the resistance. They followed the directions of the united national leadership of the revolution, which constituted of all the political Palestinian factions with the aim to end the occupation and achieve independence.
5 days after the Intifada’s eruption, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin declared the establishment of Hamas movement and highlighted its main policies and beliefs. The tools which were used during the Intifada varied. The Palestinians used strikes, demonstrations, stones, stabbing operations, and firearms. In addition, the resistance got rid of the spies, and killed and captured Israeli soldiers, officers and settlers. The occupation forces killed and tortured the Palestinians, closed down the universities, banished the activists, and destroyed the Palestinians' homes.
The Israeli occupation killed 1,162 Palestinians, 241 of them were children. The soldiers wounded 90,000 Palestinians and arrested 60,000 others from Al-Quds, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the occupied lands of 1948. The forces destroyed 1,228 houses and uprooted 140,000 trees. The Intifada ended when the PLO signed the Oslo Accords with the Israeli occupation in 1993.
